A Moment's Respite
by ArokenHalo
Summary: Because he would never admit that dreams didn't cower before his mighty Zen powers like the rest of the world, but that's all right. Niko has his own way of dealing with sleepless nights. A reflection on little brothers, the past, and Shakespeare.


Disclaimer: The _Leandros_ Series is a work of genius. I am not a genius. Everyone follow the logic train to the town of Don'tSuePlease, in the district of TotallyNotMine!

In honor of the fourth book coming out (and soon it shall be mine!), this is my first story in this fandom and hopefully not the last, because it needs the love. I was going somewhere with this, and I still may, if I can figure out where it was I was headed. Feedback rocks, but mostly I hope you enjoy it.

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The clock read 3:46 am when I opened my eyes.

I was an early riser, I always had been (very likely gifted to me by God in full anticipation of the lazy slacker I would receive for a younger brother), but this particular morning awakening was less than planned.

Dreams of the 'Holy Hell' variety, as my brother would say, were par the course for our lives; a fact that's been true since before we began actively running. Cal had a wider range to choose from and a greater propensity for them than I did, these nightmares which were less imagined fears and more a rerun of the worst moments of our lives, and he was also far more dramatic and alternately secretive about them, but I had my own sleeping troubles occasionally.

It didn't take too much effort to dredge up the image that had woken me tonight.

The memory of a large, clawed hand wrapped around my brother's calf, grey eyes widening in a split second of surprise before he was hauled of his feet into the murky lake. The sound of a cutoff breath calling my name turn into an alarmed gurgle. The feel of his fingers as they slipped through mine only to disappear beneath the surface of the water.

I was out of bed and across the small hallway before the thought had faded, silently slipping into Cal's room. Irritation and amusement swept through me in equal parts as I surveyed the state of his room. 'A place for everything and everything in its place,' were obviously words he had never considered, despite my attempts to laminate them into his skull.

The books he actually bothered to read were in random stacks on the floor and across his dresser; clothes were kicked into indiscriminate piles of clean/dirty/toxic or left wherever he had deigned to discard them in haste; a plate of what had once been vegetable lasagna was growing an entirely new genus beside a glass of hardening milk and everything (but the well-used bed, of course) was covered by a fine layer of dust.

Much as I tried, it seemed Cal had inherited our mother's sense of cleanliness, or lack thereof.

My gaze drifted to said slob, proudly so to my eternal disgust, and couldn't help the affection that washed over me at the sight. He was on his back, stretched out over the entire bed as though his sole purpose was to cover up every inch possible. One leg was dangling off the side, his comforter was twisted into indelible knots around him and one pillow was on the floor where it had been roughly pushed sometime in the night. Cal slept with an abandon and a passion I could only ever hope to direct to chores and practice.

I took a few steps closer. He never stirred.

Promise had once asked me why I tolerated my brother's sleeping and living habits. It was in a warm, amused tone, the word 'tolerated' aimed at me and my disciplined (Cal reads: anal retentive) ways as much as at Cal. This, just a couple of weeks after Darkling and the destruction of the Auphe. I remember what I told her and Robin, who had added his own, much more detailed opinions of my brother's lifestyle.

"For the first six months after I got him back, Cal slept in a fetal position under the bed, curled into a tight ball with his back against the wall. He didn't sleep more than an hour at a time, and never more than five hours a night. The first time I found him sprawled in a bed; _sprawled_, not wedged up against the corner, but actually relaxed and resting, I almost cried."

And I had told them the truth. That first night, watching him as he stretched and hogged the bed, like he used to as a child, tears had pricked my eyes.

Because much as I'll push and prod and threaten him (not just threaten, I always do follow up on it) into healthy food and daily exercise; much as I'll never let up in nagging and butt-kicking him into better habits, I don't want him to change. The junk food, the messes, the whining was all Cal, being normal, being himself. And I'd never want this life to take that away from him. I hated that it had already taken away so much.

I walked forward and had to repress a sigh when Cal shifted slightly and the blanket slid up to reveal the white bandaging on his calf. The gouges weren't too deep, considering the size of the claws, but that lake he had been pulled into wasn't known for its sanitation and I wasn't taking any chances. I had not raised him for fourteen years in a bad environment with minimal supplies and no assistance, not to mention three years keeping him alive on the run despite minor hindrances like demons, monsters and occasionally his own idiocy, only to lose him to infection.

Cal once remarked that I was a stubborn fool (my reply was not as verbal, but I believe quite effective). I prefer to call myself persistent, but I suspect we both mean the same thing. There is very little that I will not do to save my younger brother, perhaps even _nothing_ that I would not do for him; but the sad and damnable fact is that sometimes the most I can offer isn't enough to keep him safe.

I've known that since I failed to protect him when he was six against one of our mother's clients (the nighttime ones), but eleven years hasn't made the helplessness more palatable. And the point is driven home after every injury, every new scar.

Not that my little brother can't take care of himself. The number of times he has beaten me can be counted on one hand (despite what he may claim, that incident in Washington Square Park does not count, cotton candy or no), but he can more than hold his own. I've made sure of that. He has the abilities to take on professional MMA fighters hand-to-hand, his gun handling is on par with at least Marine Riflemen specifications, and his blade work is proficient enough to be within the top fifty in New York. Well, the top fifty humans, in any case.

And if I had to light a fire, literally, under his bed to get him to crawl out of it in the morning, well, at least he had something to show for it.

Another noisy shift had me focusing on Cal again. One hand wound around a handful of blanket, suddenly tight, and his entire body was tense. Though he stayed silent, I saw his lips form my name. His face was twisted with a mix of utter panic, barely restrained anguish and steel-sheathed determination.

I knew the expression well. It was the one he was wearing when he had pulled me out of Abbagor. That was nearly a year ago now, but it wasn't likely I would forget any of that experience for a long time, much as I would want to. I let the sigh go, this time, as I reached down to touch a hand on his shoulder. "Cal." He moaned a little, eyes squeezing shut. I shook his shoulder slightly and leaned down to murmur quietly, "Little brother, shut up."

He relaxed minutely under my hold, muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "_you_ shut up" and rolled over to bury his face into his pillow. I thwapped the back of his head and he slid deeper into sleep.

When he sleeps, and I mean peacefully, he looks the child that he sometimes acts. I know that Cal believes himself to be a monster; that when he looks at himself, the Auphe half overshadows everything else. For years, he insisted on the name Caliban, wanting a reminder of who he 'truly' is (not that I listened, I believe it's my prerogative as the elder to ignore him when I feel necessary). But watching him sleep, I don't understand how he can think he's anything less than human.

_Caliban_. As soon as I discovered that there was a history behind the name Sophia gifted on my little brother, I read to find out what it was. Our dear mother used every chance, whether drunken and bitter or sober and vindictive, to tell him he shared a name with a misshapen, conniving, inferior creature. But, Sophia being who she was, I had wanted to know for myself.

And, honestly, I didn't see him as such a monster.

His actions were careless and petty. He gave no thought to the pain he inflicted in those around him, sometimes even reveled in it; driven as he was by selfishness and cruelty, rage and vengeance. Yes, Caliban was monstrous…but no more so than any of the characters around him. The only thing that differentiated him from the others was that his appearance was malformed as well. Monsters were monsters, whether biologically or not. One did not define the other.

I shared my views with Cal once; when he had gotten old enough to read _Tempest_ himself (he was as adamant on it as I had been, despite the fact that his usual choice of books wasn't so much _classics_ but _comics_). He didn't meet my eyes when he called me blind and biased to boot, but he smiled a little and the next day the page with Caliban's best soliloquy was taped on the dresser.

I know that Cal still believes what he said that day, that I'm blind, that I don't see clearly when it comes to him. I'll never convince him otherwise, because when I look at him, I see my little brother and that does pretty much eclipse whatever else about him. But, it isn't the fact that I love him that prompts me to say he is human, it is his humanity that lets me love him so.

I'll never say that out loud, though, because he'll just laugh hysterically and I'll be forced to strangle him. It would be a waste to do it after so many years of holding myself back, after all.

I sigh a little, because I don't lie to myself despite what Cal may believe, and I realize that all of my musings are a stall tactic, a means by which I can reason lingering here longer than I should. Why? I don't want to leave just yet. Because even though he's right in front of me, the remembered feelings make me reluctant to take my eyes off of him.

I ran a hand through my hair; I'm usually more reasonable than this.

And, reason or not, we'd been through worse, much worse. What was it in particular about this last encounter that was sticking out in my mind?

Unable to pinpoint it, but more than aware that I would also be getting no more sleep this day, I sat at the chair he kept near the corner. I don't know why he had it (he never used it) or where he got it from (it didn't match the desk it had been paired with), but I found use for it often enough. I'm almost tempted to ask him, but he'd just say that he was tired of my looming over him all the time and just sit down already, if you're going to spend the night here, Cyrano. But, I'm not sure I'm quite ready for that much awareness coming from him.

So, I sit and study my brother, illuminated only by whatever vestiges of light manage to creep through the doors and windows.


End file.
